Digital Fine Arts

Jenny Holzer, is known for her huge public displays. Her work often speaks of God, violence, feminism, power, and war. She is really different from all the other artists, I know I say it about every artist we have written about, but it’s true. They are all so different than what I used to think an artist is supposed to be. With Jenny Holzer, her work seems really simple but it is so cool. She used to have her own text before 1993, but after 1993 she uses texts written by others. She uses LED lights to project texts on buildings, lakes, mountains, and anything huge basically (The photography isn’t hers.)

I think her texts are so effective because they are huge and they are simple. The size makes it easier for the point to get across. When something simple like “I FEEL YOU” is placed on an LED projection and projected onto a building, lake, or a mountain, it feels like God is speaking to you.

Jenny Holzer has pretty much travelled the whole world and from what it seems like, she has been welcomed everywhere. From Rome to Singapore, her projections have gotten simple messages across forcing the public to think deep into the meaning of what is being projected. It is really hard to pick one favorite projection, but I thought her San Diego 2007 projections were amazing. They are simple texts like “I breathe” and “I feel you” but looking at the projection you are forced to think why is it there? There must be a deeper meaning behind it.The video of her work in action really shows how amazing it looks when the text is scrolling on a huge building or a side walk. It can make you dizzy, but it probably also keeps you on your toes.

http://www.jennyholzer.com/Projections/site/SanDiego2007/

Roger Sayre is one of the coolest artists I have ever come across. Every artist thinks outside the box, but Roger Sayre’s art is insane! He used light bulbs, paper airplanes, and mirrors to produce some amazing art. I remember Matt Siber’s work was more on Photoshop, but Roger Sayre seems like his is all real. It doesn’t look like it has been edited. I’m not sure if “Hair Tactics” is by Roger Sayre or not, but it is so dark. Just something about the way all that hair is hanging creeps me out. Sitting is about people meditating in front of a pinhole camera. Some of the pictures turned out pretty clear. Flight series is a very creative. He used light sensitive paper and made some airplanes out of it. In Aesop’s dog, Sayre uses light to show an image of a dog hungrily looking at the biscuits. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the Mirror chair project. I’m convinced that this guy is a genius.

This is one class that I’m actually excited to do blogs for, because these projects are so cool to look at. I’ve always been the one to argue that artists don’t do anything out of the ordinary to be selling their painting for thousands of dollars, but after look at this, if I had the money, I would totally spend thousands of dollars to buy some of his art work. As I said earlier, I’m still trying to figure out how he did the Mirror chair. The only one I wasn’t sure if I liked or not was “Jacob’s Lawn Chair”, but all the other projects were absolutely amazing.

Matt Siber’s work is really different from most artists I have seen in the past. I always thought that art is on canvas with lots of brush strokes and paint, but Matt Siber’s work doesn’t seem like it uses any of that. Majority of his work seems like its pictures that are photo shopped, which I think is really cool and for me it makes it a lot more interesting to stare at a piece of art if it’s contemporary. I checked out all of his projects that are available online. The first one I looked at was “The Untitled Project.” I didn’t even have to read the artist’s statement underneath the project because “communication” was the first thing that came to my mind looking at those pictures. Siber, so effectively and without messing up the picture, removed all the texts from the pictures (from billboards, street signs, bumper stickers, and etc) and pastes them right next to the picture on a white background. My personal favorite project is Floating Logos. Siber delicately removed the supports for the signs in the pictures so it looked like the logos/signs were floating in the air.

When I saw the first two projects, I was in a complete shock. The whole digital photography for art had already thrown me off (Which I need to get used to.) The removal of the texts is a great idea. To me it means that the society is always trying to communicate with us, but without communication, things look boring. Floating logos is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I would be freaked out if I saw a sign in the air floating. Siber did such a good job removing the supports of the signs, it was unreal. I tried looking really closely to see some kind of shadow from the support but nope, he did a great job making it all look like that. I’m glad we are blogging about Matt Siber as our first artist, because it explains a lot about digital arts.

What are digital approaches to fine arts? Thats a great question. I have no idea what its about and thats why I am taking this class. I heard it’ll teach me how to use photo shop and other softwares. I just got my website developed and paid a lot for it. I know my designer used photoshop for some of the stuff on it and if I knew how to use some of the softwares, I could’ve saved some money. I was talking to my roommate the other day and he was arguing with me that digital arts is not really an art, which I think is pretty ignorant but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people side with him. I think its pretty cool what people can do with photoshop, some people of course use it for the wrong reasons. Technology has transformed the way we create art. I was looking at some really cool websites that have some amazing photoshop art uploaded. After looking at some of the stuff, I can really say that the possibilities are endless when you mix technology, art, and creativity.  The course title “digital approaches to fine arts” sounds really vague and that’s why I bet there is no set definition. I’m sure you can consider digital photography (as oppose to an actual film camera) digital art. The commercials we see on TV are all in the digital arts category. There is such a high demand for this class so I’m sure it is going to be a lot of fun 🙂